Add boiling water; let seep for five minutes...

The sky is so beautiful tonight—royal, almost. Fiery blast of red, gold, and deep ambered honey shoots up from behind the ominous purple mountains. Summer in Seattle is idyllic—but that doesn’t stop me from thinking about Paris. The beauty of the sunset reminds me of the bits and pieces I saw and heard and found during my days as a Parisian flâneuse—the bits and pieces I wanted to save but could not—ephemeral. The blaze has subsided to a lukewarm glow, melting into the Northern sky.

The gorgeous, endless blue turned into a foreboding sky as clouds gathered toward the end of the afternoon. I heard the grumble of thunder as I sat, shades across the windows, blowing on my lemon ginger tea. Today was hot and slow. Lightning cut, diagonal and somewhat sinister, across the clouds. A break in the weight of the clouds reveals a light yellowish sky; lightning moves, again, across the blue.

The sun’s only a dull red glow on the horizon; Paris, too, glows on the horizons of memory. Vivid but distant, I’m beginning to think of “Paris” as one whole entity—a year’s worth of walks and coffees and songs and books and leaves, falling leaves, one after the other, they turn red and fall. I’ve just made another cup of tea—this is the herbal tea I always used to drink in Paris. I whiff its soft, flowery steam and remember that I have brought parts of Paris, parts of girl I was in Paris, with me.

A few days later…

My hair falls flat on my freckled shoulders; the day is hot, dry, and the sky is vacant. Everyone told me that I should expect a period of depression after leaving Paris. How could I not feel as though I’d lost something? I flew home, and flew into a whirlwind of friends and internships and swimming and the usual hodgepodge of summer activities; oddly, I didn’t feel sad.

But, as the gap between my last blog entry and this one illustrates, I stopped writing. I almost stopped reading. I felt as though I had nothing to say. But it wasn’t quite that: I just needed time to sit, time to seep—like the sun tea I’m brewing, slowly, in the heat of the afternoon. Sometimes you can’t produce until you have had time to let the events of your life seep into the fibers of memory. Your experiences are fresh and vivid, the restless thoughts float and swirl around your brain; let them become inundated and sink to the bottom. In return, they’ll color, flavor, scent your person as tea leaves color water; they’ll become your landscape.

It’s comforting to think of Paris as part of my landscape, even though I know that time spent elsewhere—Seattle and, soon, California—will erode that landscape as surely and as insidiously as water wears away at stone.

For now, however, I’m happy that I have found something to write down. My sun tea smells of lemon and ginger; I, too, will continue to seep.

Interminable Gloaming and Imminent Departure

The bed was slept in and the sheets are crumpled.  Mismatched shoes and wrinkled dresses and stretched-out shirts are strewn between the bed and the desk.  The door of the cupboard, from which cellphone chargers and sticky notes are spilling, is open.  Mugs stained with tea and coffee are lined up by the sink.  Books are stacked on every available surface.

Soft crackles of thunder sound in the distance.  The rain drops speckle the tin roof of the neighboring building.  The smell of damp grass and wet pavement rises like sweet steam from a cup of tea.

Paris in the quiet afternoon hours of a Saturday.  A woman is shaking out and folding white sheets; I can see her at her open window in the building across the garden. 

I feel as though I'm watching myself in a movie--the camera pans around my room, taking in the mess, the girl sitting at her computer, the sound of gentle rain--as though this scene belongs to someone else.  As my remaining time in Paris shrinks from a few months to a few weeks and, soon, to a few days, I feel oddly devoid of emotion.  I remember the times when I couldn't wait to leave; I remember the times when I hated the very thought.  Now that my departure has transitioned from an abstract notion at the edge of thought into a reality that must be dealt with on a very banal level, I don't know what to think.  I stand at a distance, watching myself go through the motions.

I began writing on a Saturday.  Now it's Monday night and hot.  Really, vachement chaud.  "Mais cette chaleur, c'est insupportable!" is the complaint on everyone's lips.  I'm at my desk, windows wide open, curtains hanging still and listless.  The heavy blue above the buildings grows heavier with the falling night and rising damp.  We are all hoping for rain.  

The neighboring church bells are about to ring 10pm but it's not quite dark.  The days have been unbelievably long; dusk seems to last for hours.  Le crépuscule s'allonge doucement sur les cheminées.  "Crépuscule"--whose closest English translation is in fact the rarely-used "crepuscule"--is one of my new favorite words.  Soft, round, and heavy like a good down pillow.  It weighs on the tongue and has an enveloping, but gentle, sound.

I hope I don't forget my French too quickly once I'm back in the States.  Though I have to admit that the recent heat wave has reminded me why I can't wait to get out of the city.  A deep ambivalence follows my every move.

The night air is thick and sultry.  My eyes are drooping.  The crépuscule has finally ceded to the deep purple of night.  I hope I come back.

The Hourglass

Endings. I always seem to bump up against them. Home in the Pacific Northwest, college in Southern California, a year in France--it all sounds fabulous on paper. And for the most part, it is. But it is also a lot of moving around, a lot of goodbyes, a lot of plane rides. As much as I'd like to avoid the very idea, I'm leaving Paris in six weeks. I'm leaving indefinitely.

Nights spent in cafés and a tangled web of streets slouch by; mornings and afternoons march seamlessly, endlessly onward. The dissonant church bells chime eight times and I walk down the eight flights of stairs for dinner--peas and smoked mackerel and onions of late. It always seems to be time for dinner, and rarely time for lunch. Hours seem alternately like molasses--seeping from an upended jar--or like sand in a sablier--falling endlessly in the abyss of memory. Thick or fleeting, minutes leak away--irresistible and irrepressible.

A few days ago, I was walking through the familiar tunnels of the metro on my way home. Shouting echoed from around the bend; before I had time to consider its source, a man materialized, almost mowing me down as he hurtled by. On his heels were his pursuers, and a woman shouting, "Arrêtez-le! Arrêtez-le! Voleur!" (Stop him! Thief!) But he was gone far before my mind could process the incident; I exchanged looks and pfffts (a key expression in the French lexicon, whereby you puff up your cheeks and slowly let the air out of slightly parted lips) with my fellow communters, and the gentle, habitual hum of trains filled in the silence left in the wake of commotion.

The voleur really struck me, but I could not put my finger on why. Thefts must occur on the metro all the time; why did I practically collide with one on that particular afternoon? It seems somewhat futile to seek a reason for such occurrences; what seems more useful is the way in which you interpret them. A few days later, I began this entry about the approaching end of my time in Paris--without making the connection. But a few days after that, it dawned on me that the voleur mirrors my perception of time and experience. I've often longed to grasp experiences, hold on to images, pause the clock for a minute in order to be, to stay, in a lovely moment. This longing always becomes particularly poignant before endings. But time, like the voleur, will fly by. And then it is gone.

Leaving Paris, however, isn't an entirely sad affair. In the past couple of weeks, the tourists have arrived in droves, and I imagine it will only get worse as spring dries into summer. I'm looking forward to getting away from the camera-wielding hordes, getting out of the stuffy city, and passing the lingering Seattle evenings out on the porch with the dogs. So many things I love about home have slipped from the forefront of my mind. But one of those things was brought sharply back into focus the other day on the #12 train towards Porte de la Chapelle (I seem to spend an inordinate amount of time on the metro, but I suppose most city-dwellers do). The doors clanged open and out floated the twang of a familiar song. A tall man with a guitar, a harmonica and a little potbelly stood amidst the pointy Parisians, noses buried in newspapers, eyes trained on cellphones. He was singing, in a pitch-perfect country drawl, "Your cheatin' heart will tell on you..." I sat entranced, thinking to myself, "What you doin' all the way out in this here country, cowboy?" But then I thought, "What am I, suburban-raised West Coast girl, doing all the way out in the middle of the Parisian subway?" So I just gave him two euros and asked where he was from. "England." Fancy that.

Anyway, I am off to read L'éducation sentimentale, whose main character comes to Paris, finds love, loses money, dresses superbly and eventually becomes as disillusioned and cynical as all the rest. Sentimental education indeed.

Gros bisous, mes chers lecteurs. I'll see you sooner than you think.

De retour à Paris

One of my favorite parts of traveling is coming home.  Exhausted after an overnight ferry from Santorini to Athens followed by a delayed flight back to Paris, I melted into my deliciously fluffy bed and could not have been more content.  Dahling, it was like BUTTAH.  Make no mistake, Greece was delightful--a 10-day binge of sun, knickknack shopping and yogurt.  And oh my god, the yogurt and honey.  I was already a fan of Greek yogurt--but for the past week and a half, I literally became addicted.  Greek yogurt and honey for breakfast.  And dessert.  And snack.  I took to stealing the mini honey packets from hotel breakfast--Just In Case, I told my friends--so I would never be caught with only one half the magnificent duo.  But I digress.  Spring break in Greece was génial (or, as we Americans would say, "great"; I couldn't, however, use "great" because "Greece was great" sounds too cheesy).  I was, nonetheless, thrilled to get back to Paris.  The air was soft and threaded with the scent of flowers.  The gray spaces of the garden below my window have been filled with voluminous greenery.  The Hausmanian buildings stood stately and magnificent above the boulevards.  Businessmen scurried along in their sharply-tailored suits and neatly-tied scarves.  I wandered along the quiet streets of my neighborhood looking for takeout and said hello to my favorite local dog, a large chocolate lab with a big, boxy snout.  He thumped his tail on the ground and gazed at me sweetly.

Nothing makes me love Paris as much as its absence.  It's only when I'm away that I begin to realize the scope of my attachment.  And what a snob I've become!  I find myself turning up my nose at imperfectly manicured gardens and wondering why other cities are not pretty.  Living in a city as beautiful as Paris makes one think that aesthetic pleasure is a right to which one is entitled.  The glitter rubs off on even the most mundane activities--my stroll to the grocery store, for example, is quite pleasant.  There's the old abandoned hospital--sobering but admirably crafted, its belfry rising with a certain majesty over the otherwise unremarkable street.  From behind the hospital walls peek the flowering heads of trees; a fountain lined with fallen leaves instead of water announces the entry to the metro.  And that's only on the way to the grocery store.

Yesterday I met my friend Jasper in tiny Japantown--really just a conglomeration of sushi and ramen noodle places--near Place de l'Opéra.  The sushi was decent (one of the few areas in which the West Coast is supremely superior), the conversation was refreshing (as was the watered-down House wine).  But the walk from my foyer in the 6th to the restaurant in the 2nd was dazzling.  Strolling down Boulevard Raspail, which is now framed by luscious green leaves, I noticed--for the first time--a narrow clock tower, sanwhiched between the other buildings; the stone was sun-bleached beige and a thin curtain fluttered lazily out of one of the windows below the clock's white face.  Soon I was on Rue du Bac, the Louvre's southwestern facade glittering in the early-evening sun.  The gray surfaces were plated with gold.  Soon I was floating across the Seine and into the Tuilerie gardens; the pyramid-like shrubs cast long, geometric shadows across the lawn.  The real pyramid sparkled, hot light and cold glass.  I waltzed under meticulously-manicured trees, their tops perfect squares.  I had the distinct impression I was wandering through a puzzle--angles and perpendicular lines and rococo curves, every corner shooting back a dazzling gold--I was Alice au pays des merveilles.  Missing was the warring deck of cards; weren't they playing croquet as the Queen of Hearts shrieked "Off with their heads!!"?

It was gloaming as Jasper and I perused restaurant menus.  Très doux.  Doux--there is no better word for a Parisian evening in spring.  Doux--or douce in the feminine--whose translation encompasses "soft," "smooth," "sweet," "mild" and "gentle."  The French pronunciation is exquisitely soft and light: it floats off their rounded lips as a puff of smoke would wisp into the night.  This, in a word, is what it feels like to wander the rues of the 2nd arrondisement, lazily looking for a restaurant, intoxicated with the douceur of spring.

And I thought everyone was exaggerating about springtime in Paris.

Bisous mes douces (also an outmoded word for "sweetheart")!  À bientôt.

March On, Flâneurs!

Dear Readers,

Please excuse the delay between the date of the entry and the date of its publishing.  The writing of this entry has been a bit of a lengthy process, since every time I edit the post, I'm compelled to change or delete everything I wrote before.  But, in the interest of my blog, I said to myself, "Alice, get on with it!"  And this is what I ended up with.

Paris is perched on the shoulder of the season.  As I sat at a café sipping 5-euro thé rouge and nibbling on a gingersnap yesterday (tea is always ludicrously expensive in Paris, though I suppose the cost takes into consideration the aura of subtle chic you acquire in the purchase of a steaming, glass mug), I looked over at the tiny garden that sits atop my metro station.  They have—the mysterious, invisible Paris gardeners—planted a few droopy palm trees.  I usually avoid the park because, to me, it looks like a sad imitation of California.  Only without the sun, or the smiley people, or the flip-flops.  But yesterday, the garden had bloomed.  The cherry trees were pink.  The leaves had filled in the gaps between the starved branches of the trees.  When did that happen?  I walked home.  And they were everywhere; flowers--fragrant, soft and bosomy--dripping over awnings, peeking out of window boxes.  The city is no longer bathed in shades of gray, but in shades of green and a rainbow of pastels.  And speaking of bathing, we've had more than a few April showers of late--the sky heavy and flat with rainclouds, the vague humidity rising from the streets--but I suppose that is the price one must pay if one is to enjoy May flowers.  On a less saccharine note, I recently found a poem--"Spleen" by Baudelaire--that so perfectly describes the recent Paris weather that I can't help wondering if Baudelaire wrote it in April...

Quand le ciel bas et lourd pèse comme une couvercle
Sur l'esprit gémissant en proi aux longs ennuis,
Et que de l'horizon embrassant tout le cercle
Il nous verse un jour noir plus triste que les nuits;

That is only the first stanza--the rest is a bit too depressing to include here, but do read it if you're ever suffering from an attack of ennui or existential frustration.  Baudelaire empathizes.  But enough with the weather!  I have recently been pondering a different sort of issue.

The question is no longer whether I have changed: I have changed, it is a fact.  What I find myself brooding over, turning over and over in my mind as one rotates a hard caramel over the tongue in order to soften and melt it, is this: has Paris changed me, or would I have changed with or without Paris?  Of course I can only speculate endlessly because, as Milan Kundera points out in The Unbearable Lightness of Being, life can only be lived once and it is thus in vain that we attempt to determine how the denouement would be different had we made such-and-such a decision instead of the one we made.  But in any event, I do not think I would have changed thus had I spent the last months in California.  Some of the differences are concrete: I now adore the strong Parisian espresso whereas I used to wrinkle my nose at its bitterness; when asked for directions, I know where to point the askers without consulting my map; every café is mine, and I strut in to order a noisette like I own the place--gone is my former timidity and nobody speaks to me in English.  Other changes are less noticeable--more abstract; these more subtle differences, however, are vaster and far more significant than their more obvious counterparts.

I am relaxed.  Odd--that you should have to take the West Coast girl off of the West Coast to get her to chill out.  A week or two ago, I don't quite remember when--I seem to have lost the conception of time as concrete blocks (day vs. night, work vs. play) in which tasks should be completed--I watched the sun setting behind la Tour Montparnasse.  It had been a good day, I remember saying to myself.  Then I attempted to recall what I had done to make it a good day.  If I was hard-pressed then to remember what I had done, don't expect me to remember now.  Sometimes I pass days doing nothing at all.

That is, if "nothing" includes wandering--though not listlessly--around my neighborhood, comparing coffee at the Couleur Café (which I am partial to because they play Bob Marley) and at the Nemrod.  I realized I must be some sort of flâneur (or, rather, a flâneuse) when, having found myself in the Bon Marché with my friend Julia, I was entranced not by the Marc Jacobs bags and glittering display-cases, but by the sprawling, columned passage, or gallery, in the middle.  The famous obsession of Walter Benjamin, the Paris passages.  An alternate universe, a sense of movement and fluidity, a somewhat transgressive idea (a passage is, after all, a transition from one space to another).  How apt, I thought, to be entranced by a passage during the passage from Winter to Spring.  So I wandered home and began to write.

Or read.  Or make some tea from Paris' best tea shop, Mariage Frères.  My current favorite is called Shanghai Breakfast Tea, described as a "mélange souriant et aromatique."  Idolatry only takes on a negative connotation when it doesn't result in anything.  But my thoughts are blooming faster than I can record them.  Perhaps this dreamy blog entry will be the only concrete result--for now.  But an interior shift is, sans aucun doute, taking place.  Permeating my consciousness like metallic raindrops, something--though I'm not quite sure what--is shaping my thoughts as subtly as water molds clay.

I've been reading a lot, though not quite what I'm supposed to be reading.  It was, in fact, as I was finishing The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath that I stumbled upon the quotation that prompted my disorganized and largely inconclusive philosophizing about change.  Writing about the memories from the period of her life in the bell jar, Plath remarks, "I remembered everything...Maybe forgetfulness, like a kind of snow, should numb and cover them.  But they were part of me.  They were my landscape."  Though I'm not in any sort of bell jar, I am in the middle of a distinct period of my life--one which I will I will probably remember as having a beginning and an end.  Should the memories fade, I am reassured that Paris has become part of me.  It is my landscape.

And so I'll leave you to chew on that.  I have a busy day ahead of me, in which I plan to drink more tea, and read more books, and wander, and wander, and wander.

No wonder existentialism was born in Paris

As I sat on a rigid, red-velvet covered bench, peering down at the performance from the highest balcony at the Opéra Garnier, something shifted interiorly.  The change was almost imperceptible.  I was watching Le Parc, a modern ballet choreographed by Angelin Preljocaj and set to Mozart.  If you ever have the opportunity, go see this ballet.  I haven't been so taken with a ballet since I saw Balanchine's Jewels at Lincoln Center last May.  In fact, I don't think I've been so enamored of--or engulfed by--a work of art in what feels like a very long time.

I've been suffering from a terrible bout of existential ennui--not to mention a couple of extremely unpleasant colds.  These excuses, one pretentious and one mundane, account for the recent lack of blog entries.  Not much has changed in Paris since my last entry a month ago: the university strike stubbornly continues; the promise of spring proved to be just that--gloomy rain clouds and chill gusts ate up the sunlight almost as soon as it appeared.

Moreover, I have the frustrating impression that I've hit a language plateau which, everyone assures me, is completely normal on the long and indefinite journey to fluency.  Anyone who has ever tried to learn a language can probably relate: progress is never steady or uniform but rather bumpy and rough--like an old car that runs really well, but only for a few miles at a time, whereupon it overheats and conks out.  The joyride is over, and it's back to work.  And as with an old, well-loved car, the work is gratifying in its own right.  Learning a language is a veritable labour of love...one that never ends.  I may be, for most intents and purposes, fluent in French, but I don't think I'll ever consider the learning period over.  As for the language plateau--it's not that my French has conked out, but language has the unsettling ability to reveal something you haven't learned for every expression or word that you have.  For example, the perfectionist in me can't help but notice the fact that:

1. I still stumble over two-syllable words that have an -r in each syllable (such as programme)

2. and that I can't spit out Tu vois ce que je veux dire? as seamlessly as my French friends (their version sounds like "toovoih skuh juvv deer," as in "ya know whaddymean")

3. and that, even though I'm no longer accused of blatant Americanism, I still get ohh t'as un petit accent! tu viens d'où...? ("ohh you have a little accent!  you're from...?")

Sigh.  I'll just have to continue with my cute little accent until I collide with one of those exhilarating periods of improvement.  These are the moments in which language finally pats you on the back for all the work you've done: you find fully-formed sentences, idiomatic expressions, and new words that you don't quite recall learning burbling out of your mouth.  The experience is akin to jumping blindly into a body of water--and finding the water warm and comfortable (as opposed to getting ice-cold saltwater up your nose, for example).  But alack!  I've not experienced one of these improvement-leaps since I got back to Paris in January.  And so I stumble glumly over programme--and I can't even swear properly because merde gives me trouble too--as the gloom deepens and the strike barrels stubbornly on.

On the other hand, joy and beauty have begun to tiptoe back into my life, and I can feel the languidness and boredom dissipating.  Which brings me back to my night at the opera house (or simply Garnier as the Parisians affectionately call it).  I became so swept up in the Mozart and the exquisitely light movements of the dancers that I forgot to feel bored and grumpy.  Inspired by nothing more than the fact that such grace exists--I didn't want to possess it, or immortalize it in a picture, I just wanted to delight in its existence--I sat entranced for the entirety of the two-hour performance.  This genre of beauty could exist in any city's opera house; but I, of course, was at Garnier, smack in the middle of one of Paris' most elegant quartiers.  So when I floated down the grand staircase, past the stone cherubs twisted around bannisters and under the soft, hazy light of the extravagant chandelier, I didn't have to return to reality.  I found myself outside; the air was silken and cool after a day of drizzle.  Behind me glowed Garnier's expertly-lit facade and across the street, Café de la Paix--an example of the café parisien at its very best--hummed with some late-night diners and couples lingering over empty glasses.  The light from iron street-lamps glimmered on wet pavement; I drifted dreamily down a quiet street and was enveloped into the Paris night.

I am rediscovering my joie de vivre; wonderful things--and more blog entries--are sure to follow.  I am off to make some hot cocoa for myself--one of the secrets of surviving a Parisian winter.

Bisous, my beloved blog-followers (if any remain); I promise to not be such a bum about writing here in the weeks that follow.  And, for the last stubborn weeks of winter, bon courage!

"A Light exists in Spring"

Two incredible things happened today: I saw Gérard Depardieu and the sun shone for (almost) the entire day.

As I was leaving my favorite overpriced produce store (five euros a pound for...apples?  I permit myself this luxury because these apples are literally nirvana embodied in a fruit), my spirits were much higher than usual for a number of reasons.  First, the aforementioned sun had made an unexpected appearance; second, Stevie Wonder's "Signed, Sealed, Delivered" had come on my iPod, which not only improved my metro ride immensely but also reminded me that my country has a president who can dance (I'd like to see Sarkozy shake his booty.  On second thought, I take that back...).  In any event, I'm innocently strolling past the neighborhood cheese-monger, nirvana-apples in hand, when I pass by a rather plump Frenchman whose hair is unbelievably shiny.  "Well somebody used a deep-conditioning hair mask this morning," I thought to myself when, tout d'un coup, I notice that enormous nose!  I turn around suddenly, almost mauling a patron of the cheese-monger, and realize that the somebody is in fact Gérard Depardieu!  A few of the other commoners have noticed him, but no one is making a big deal (Parisians are similar to New Yorkers in that they consider themselves far too cool to be caught fawning over a movie star).  I stare for a minute.  His hair continues to shine.  His belly and nose continue to protrude.  He's surprisingly handsome for an old fat guy (let's call a spade a spade).  Then he hops on his motorcycle and is gone.  Sigh.

But let's return to the weather, one of my preferred subjects (oh dear: I fear the nirvana-apple does not fall far from the tree).  When the sun comes out in Paris, at least during the winter months, the natives become somewhat perplexed.  The reaction is somewhat similar to that of Louise (one of the beloved family dogs) when placed in front of a mirror.  She takes one look at her own fuzzy face, screws up her beady eyes, becomes swiftly disoriented, and then begins to howl with fury at the appearance of this intruder.  Of course, the Parisians are thrilled--rather than furious--at the emergence of the sun, but only slightly less disoriented.  We all emerge, squinting and blinded, from the dark tunnels of the metro.  It may be the same metro station we frequent every day, and yet the street will look oddly different, and we will wonder if perhaps we have made a mistake.  But no!  That's just the effect of over-dilated pupils (the result of living, for months, in the gloom of an hivernal Paris sky) being exposed to a sudden influx of light!

But science aside, the city really does take on a vastly different sheen when the sun comes out.  I had always heard that "Paris in the springtime" was dazzling, lovely, romantic, swoon-worthy.  I thought--having only seen Paris during the three other seasons--that everybody was probably exaggerating, just as they usually exaggerate about French cuisine.  I agree that French food can be fabulous--though it must be said that I have had more than a few unremarkable meals in Parisian bistros.  By contrast, there is nothing unremarkable about the appearance of sunlight after an obnoxiously long winter.  As the French would say, "J'ai fait wow!"  Everyone uncurls from inside their enormous scarves and voluminous coats.  I've noticed the smell: there is a hint of something soft and sweet--doux is really the mot juste--lingering on the edge of the breeze.  It's more of an undercurrent; your nose catches a whiff of it but before you can inhale, it's slipped away.  If you seek them out, you won't find the traces of Spring that are beginning to pop up.  They must be stumbled on accidently, rather like my glimpse of Mr. Depardieu.

And we are laughing.  I have spent the better part of the last three days giggling, howling, occasionally roaring with laughter.  There was my friend Mario's dinner party on Saturday night.  He cooked a delicious three-course meal, and all the guests chipped in with bread, cheese, wine, salad, and dessert.  In spite of the refined nature of the event, we were all laughing like maniacs before the first bottle of wine was finished.  You can imagine the raucous exuberance that ensued after bottle number three.  Suffice it to say that, by the end of the party, more than a few of us were rolling on the floor, giggling at a joke we couldn't even remember.  And then I ate crêpes with my friend Alex at midnight on Sunday.  Yes, I had class at 8am the next day.  Yes, they gave me a nutella crêpe instead of butter, sugar, and cinnamon.  And I have no idea what was so funny.  But I suspect it has something to do with that sweet perfume trailing the winter gusts.  Even in the Fnac--the Office Depot par excellence--while Quentin and I waited for almost an hour to exchange some speakers I bought, we were uncontrollably snickering under our breath like kids who can't stop laughing in the middle of the symphony (the French people in the exchange-waiting-area, which has the ambiance of the DMV, gave us dirty looks at first; then we made friends with the monsieur sitting next to us, whose sister lives in Pasadena!...I seem to attract Californians and Long Islanders wherever I go).

Though I will no doubt sound horribly pretentious, I must use this opportunity to share a delightful combination Mario discovered.  He mentioned to me that he had tasted some cheese--though he didn't remember its name--that went extraordinarily well with black cherry jam.  So off I went to my neighborhood fromagerie, whereupon I saw Gerard Depardieu, and asked for a cheese that would compliment black cherry jam.  I was given a salty yet soft brebis; the fromagère then convinced me to take some camembert; I was about to leave when he said, "Mademoiselle, I absolutely cannot let you leave without tasting our comté," and so I left with a sliver of that too.  So I'm no Julia Child; nonetheless, voilà:

Buy a loaf of fresh pain de campagne (preferably from a French baker and not from Safeway)

Pick up some black cherry jam (I suggest English brands; the know their jam from their jelly)

Go to a cheese shop and ask to sample their brebis; buy whichever tastes best

Here's the easy part: cut a slice of bread, smear with jam, add a slice of brebis on top et voilà!  Delightful.

So, in closing, I leave you with a Emily Dickinson poem.  This poem manages to describe Spring in its loveliness, but without all the obnoxious fluff (like bunnies and rainbows).  Moreover, the fact that even Emily Dickinson can strike a lighthearted note speaks volumes for the power and joyfulness of Spring.

A Light exists in Spring

Not present on the Year

At any other period --

When March is scarcely here

A Color stands abroad

On Solitary Fields

That Science cannot overtake

But Human Nature feels.

It waits upon the Lawn,

It shows the furthest Tree

Upon the furthest Slope you know

It almost speaks to you.

Then as Horizons step

Or Noons report away

Without the Formula of sound

It passes and we stay --

A quality of loss

Affecting our Content

As Trade had suddenly encroached

Upon a Sacrament.

Well, gros bisous my rosy-cheeked cherubs.  I hope Spring is beginning to appear chez vous as well.

La Grève, part two: the Real Deal

Hey, remember when I skipped out on a couple of classes to flounce around the Petit Palais and eat chocolates?  That was delightful.  I facetiously named the post in which I wrote about my exploits, "La Grève!" (French for "Strike!")  At the time, strikes seemed rather frivolous and fun--a good excuse to take a day off.

Well, well, well.  What have we here?  None other than a real-life, serious, and obnoxiously disruptive strike.  Luckily, the public transportation was only blocked up yesterday, though I still managed to get stuck in the metro for half an hour today when the train mysteriously stopped and all the lights turned off.  But it hasn't just been the public transport workers--the university professors are also pissed off.  I have asked a bunch of my foyer-mates the reason for the strike in higher education.  The answers I got where mostly comprised of eye-rolling, shrugging, and irritated mutterings that sounded like "Shai pas moi putain alors" (approximate translation: "Shit man who knows?").  The best explanation I found was in Paris to the Moon, Adam Gopnik's collection of essays, the thesis of which can best be summarized: the French are Ridiculous.  Of another, larger strike in the 90's, Gopnik writes, "Though the strike has developed a quasi-revolutionary momentum, it doesn't have anything like a quasi-revolutionary ideology; the slogan of the government functionaries at the heart of the strike is, essentially, 'Status quo forever'" (31).  

In any event, almost all of my classes this week were cancelled, and I hear that they'll probably be cancelled next week too.  The thing is, the professors' strike is very civilized; they are all "invited," though not obligated, to strike.  As a result, students never know if their prof is a grèviste (striker) or not.  So the studious among us show up to the classroom in time for class, only to conclude after 20 minutes that our prof must be busy striking.  There are never any helpful signs (such as, "I'm on strike today, piss off!") or emails ("Dear students, don't bother shlepping all the way to school today, I'm busy sleeping in...err, striking"), and no one has any idea when the strike will end.

...A week later...

All of my professors are still on strike.  Except, that is, for the one who conducts my 8am Monday class.  Seriously, of all the profs to stick around, why the one with the 8am class?!  I'm growing very fond of complaining, and I can't believe how much sympathy I'm getting from my French comrades.  If Clarice, who's heard me complain about the strike for the fourth time this week, were American, she would probably tell me to shut up and enjoy the free time.  Instead, she nods with understanding and does the French sigh (where they puff up their cheeks and slowly release the air through their slightly-parted lips in a pffft sound).  When I talked to the all-knowing Pièrrile (who is the foyer busybody: she sees all, hears all, and her number #1 pastime is sniggering about la directrice Marie-Joseph, who she calls MJ, behind her back), she too did the French sigh, accompanied by an exaggerated eye-roll.  Pièrrile responded that her professors were on strike too, except that it was a far more serious situation for her (it is always a far more serious situation for Pièrrile) because her university was an hour away AND she was fairly certain that one of her profs was hitting on her because he had a nasty habit of looking at her chest (hence, she explained, her recent penchant for turtlenecks).  I finished my complaining marathon with the more subdued Cécille, whose only response was "Oh lala lala..." (the more la's, the worse the situation).

Back in the states, especially in sunny, happy California where smiles are as necessary an accessory as sunglasses, complaining is not so kindly received.  A complainer is told to "stop being such a Negative Nancy," to "look on the bright side!", and that "every cloud has a silver lining."  Some idiomatic expressions, such as "the grass is always greener...", have French equivalents; the aforementioned expressions do not.  In fact, I remember that Sarah, my French friend who lived in California for a year, used to complain about everyone being so nice and smiley all the time ("they're not my friends," she explained, "so why are they all smiling at me").  In France, complaining isn't a bad thing; rather, it's a perfectly acceptable way to talk about the state of your life.  A couple of weeks ago, I walked into the kitchen one Tuesday night and declared, "Putain, j'ai la flemme de cuisiner!"  In English, "Ugh, God, I'm so sick of cooking!"  My French friends were delighted, and told me that I was really becoming une française.  I thought my friend Alex would be offended when I dryly remarked that complaining was a national sport in France; instead, he laughed and said, "exacte!"

It's February 3 and there are still no classes, still no news from the profs.  I'll update you if anything exciting happens; in the mean time, I'll try to find something interesting to complain about.

Bisous,

Alice

Il pleut des cordes

As I am too often wont to do, I sit at the little desk that faces my window and begin to write a blog entry instead of doing whatever I'm supposed to be doing.  In this case, I should be preparing English lessons for my tutees and packing for jolly ol' London.  But il pleut des cordes--it's raining cats and dogs--and all I feel like doing is making coffee and thinking over the events, big and small, of the past week.

So I'll compromise: write for a wee bit (I'm preparing myself for London by picking up some of their argot), drink some coffee to spur me into motion, and get to my packing and tutoring.

(Editor's note: I did in fact get to my obligations.  But I continued to add to this entry over the next few days, hence its length.)

My current state of mind can be described thus: I feel as though I'm on the cusp of a different perspective.  Ok, I know you're all going, "What? Cusp? Perspective? At least she's not writing about the weather again..."  But hold your proverbial horses, I can explain!

I watched Obama's inauguration speech last night online.  Besides being blown away by his ability to present rich prose in a way that is moving, but not sentimental, and easy to understand, though not simple, I started thinking about change (how could I not?) and transition.  The country is perched on the cusp between two vastly different states of mind, preparing for the sea change that is beginning to take place.  Though I'm exhilarated at the possibility of real change, I'm anxious for its embodiment, its concrete manifestation; but change is still only a twinkle in the cold January air.  We are thus on the cusp of a new way of being and seeing the world.  

Cusp, noun.

figurative: a point between two different situations or states, when a person or thing is poised between the two or just about to move from one to the other

Now perhaps you're beginning to understand why I can't stop using the word cusp.  It's a bizarre little word: its consonants are in unexpected places (the sound "sp" seems to belong at the beginning, not the end, of a word) and it has an awful lot of sounds crammed into one syllable.  But imagine "a pointed end where two curves meet" (like the tip of a Gothic arch), and you might start to see the visual onomatopoeia in cusp.  Onomatopoetic words are formed from the sound associated with that which the word describes (like meow or sizzle).  Cusps, however, are associated not with a sound but with an image.  In my mind, the image of cusp mirrors the word: an intersection between two continuous lines (the soft sound of "cu" meets the harder sound of "sp"), a breaking point between what was and what will be (the abrupt -p sound at the end).

So now that we are all sitting around saying "cusp, cuuusssssP, cccusppp" under our breath, we can return to the idea of being sur le point d'une nouvelle perspective (on the cusp of a new perspective), and maybe I'll even get around to writing about Paris!

How many novels, memoirs and essays have I read--from the comfort and familiarity of home on the West Coast--in which authors expound upon their ardent love for Paris?  Many.  In any event, I sped thirstily through these accounts, savoring the poignancy and immediacy of artful recreations of experience.  I, sitting in an armchair at home in Seattle or lounging on the lawn at Scripps, loved Paris too!  I too was part of the dream that is Paris, the mystique and legend of the city.

But when I arrived, among the bustle and hassle of setting up life in another country, I felt nothing of the sort: not only was the romance of Paris hidden from me, I was also acutely aware of my status as an étrangère--a foreigner, a stranger, an unknown.  There were, of course, moments when the curtain was swept back and glimpses of the magic appeared--an autumn walk through the Luxembourg gardens, having a disorganized, intellectual conversation with Quentin in the courtyard of the Musée de la Vie Romantique, peering out into the rain from a well-heated and softly-lit café--but I didn't experience Paris on a sensory level.  Rather, I was busy watching and listening, exploring, testing.  In my typical way, I was scrutinizing the city on an intellectual level, constantly wondering: What's this?  How do you do that?  Do I like this?  Do I want to do that?  How do I fit in here?  I was consumed by learning and analyzing.  And I was a bit disappointed to find that I didn't fall in love with the real, concrete Paris as easily as I fell in love with the literary version.

Recently, a few things--a trip, a book, a moment with a friend--conspired to shake up my way of seeing and understanding the city.  In the blog entry written shortly before returning home for Christmas break, I wrote that I would return to Paris with new eyes.  I was right that my perspective was going to change; I didn't know how that change would manifest itself.  It's true that I regard Seattle as home but, upon my return to Paris, I felt an attachment to the latter that I have never experienced with the former.  Paris felt like mine.  Seattle has never belonged to me in such a singular, independent way: I had come to Paris of my own accord, had discovered little gardens and warm cafés by myself, and had lived a hundred lovely moments which--though I longed to share them with my friends and family--now reside in my pocket as little private memories.  Paris has thus taken up residence in my being and has helped shape the abstract notion of my identity.

My friend Meredith and I sat on my desk the night before she returned to Boston, gazing out over the dreamy view of Paris rooftops.  For the first time, I felt real affection for those rooftops.  What has changed my perspective of Paris is not just that I have discovered it on my own, but also that I have shared it with friends that have become very dear.  As my friend Brooke so wisely quoted, "We'll always have Paris."

Bisous,

Alice

Paris is freezing. I'm in bed.

Alors.  The nearby church bells are chiming half pas six, it's well past dusk, and I have just finished some moderately disgusting instant coffee in an effort to jolt myself out of winter hibernation.  I haven't yet figured out why the bells ring so insistently at this hour, but for me their reverberations have come to indicate the transition from the rushed, harried workday to the evening, when the Parisians begin to head home, stopping by boulangeries to buy their dinner baguettes.  I am snugly wrapped in various layers of wool, cashmere and down, and have recently woken up from a long winter's nap.  Since my day has been far from taxing, the only explanation I can find for this lethargy is the season.

The day after I returned to Paris, the temperature proceeded to drop into the teens and stay there for a few biting days.  Fortunately, the sun shone brilliantly the entire time; the resulting combination of white winter light and below-freezing air was a great (in the sense of "considerable," not "fabulous") shock to the system--akin to being thrown into an ice bath.  As a swimmer in glacial water thrashes frantically about, I was bursting with energy, feeling almost manic.  Since then, I have managed to complete a paper, take a four-and-a-half hour 

exam, go out to dinner with friends twice and Aunt Jane once (mmm thanks for the delicious fish!), do a bit of shopping, complete three hours of English tutoring, go to a wine-fueled party, visit two museums, and make plans to see practically everyone I know in Paris....I've been back for a week.

After a late lunch today, however, I became very cold.  Even tea hadn't warmed me up.  The clouds have been creeping back into Paris, and with them the temperature has begun to rise (who ever thought the Southern California girl would think of 38 degrees as comparatively warm?!).  Nonetheless, I felt a cold seep into my bones this afternoon, and at four p.m. I could not resist crawling into bed.  "I'll just read for awhile, warm up," I said to myself.  I'm currently winding my way through Michael Ondaatje's memoir, Running in the Family (which I highly, highly suggest).  The book takes place in his country of birth, Ceylon, an island off the coast of India, where the temperature ranges from hot to a stifling-I-can't-stop-sweating hot.  Thoughts of orange sunsets and tropical breezes began to envelop me in a cozy, drowsy warmth (with a little help from my gargantuan down comforter), and soon I found myself on the point of m'assoupir (whose translation is "to doze off;" I adore this verb because it sounds like the contented sigh emitted upon finally lying down, and because it always makes me picture someone falling asleep in their soup).

...The next morning...

I woke up to the most fabulous sunrise this morning!  One of the (few) perks of living through a dark winter is that you don't have to wake up at five a.m. to enjoy the sunrise.  Don't get too jealous, however, because the Paris sky has resumed its habitual grayish blue after only an hour.  I'm drinking the last (swiftly cooling) drops of my tea, and contemplating what to do with a free day (exams are finally over!).  Because of the cold, my visits to the farmer's market have slowed.  But my infamous cabbage soup (infamous because I have been known to make giant vats of it, which linger in the garage freezer for weeks, maybe months on end) is calling my name.  Moreover, I have to keep up my reputation in the foyer as being one of the few Americans who can cook.  "You really surprised me," one of the Frenchies said, "because you're American...but you're a good cook!"  I smiled, but I resent this comment nonetheless.  It's like, Hello?!  As long as you avoid hamburger joints, you can find excellent cuisine in all U.S. cities--or at least all of the ones I've visited.  Plus, I've recently learned that putting ketchup on pasta is not uncommon in (even nice) French homes.  For God's sake, buy a jar of tomato sauce!  I digress.  Off to the farmer's market with me, and then perhaps I'll go sit in a café with a pretentious air, pretending to write the next Great American Novel.  Should probably keep my glasses on...

Bisous mes petits chous!

Flirtatious Customs Officers and Enormous Scarves: Welcome Back to France!

Bleary-eyed, vaguely frazzled, and feeling the kind of dirty that only 10 hours on a plane can create (it's a combination of the stale, recycled air and repeatedly dribbling "Honey Roasted Pretzel Mix" crumbs onto my lap), I stumble through Charles de Gaulle toward the baggage claim.  My giant, new, white wool scarf--I thought I had really outdone myself with its voluptuous enormity, but I was swiftly upstaged by a French woman in a scarf so big she couldn't turn her head--had decided to fuzz all over my black pants and black sweater.  I sort of resembled a very jet-lagged yeti (the fur lining my hood didn't help).

And yet, I knew for sure I was back in France when the passport control officer shamelessly flirted with me--and was apparently so distracted by my furry-ways that he almost forgot to ask for my residency card.  I gave him my passport and bent down to pick up a paper I had dropped.  When I straightened, he stared at me and demanded to see my passport.  "But I just gave it to you," I argued, surprised that my mouth was speaking French even though my brain wasn't properly working.

"Where's your passport?  I don't have it."

"Mais si!  I just--"

"Hey," said the officer, pulling out my passport from under his desk and cracking a smile, "I'm just messing with you!"  Since when do passport control officers "just mess with you"?  He proceeded to ask what I was studying, and made some remark about liking Sartre.  Exhausted as I was, I had to laugh at the ridiculosity of the situation.  I could have been smuggling illegal plant specimens, drugs, or killer beetles...but as long as I giggled and swept my curls aside coquettishly, pas de souci (no worries)!

Soon enough (or, more accurately, within two hours), I was bouncing through the glittering Parisian streets on the AirFrance bus.  My use of "glittering" is not meant to romanticize the scene: Paris may have beautiful architecture, a sedately flowing river and immaculate gardens, but its color is overwhelmingly gray.  On most days, particularly in winter, the sky is so gray it seems without depth: no clouds mark the difference between down here and up there.  Don't stare too hard into its bottomless (topless?) gray, you'll become swiftly disoriented.  This gray sky is punctuated only by the Paris rooftops, standing stiff and stately, in varying shades of gray--which, being a shade itself, makes for infinite gradations of gray; the city becomes a patchwork of grays.  But yesterday morning, the gray had been overtaken by glittering flakes of snow.  A thin white dusting covered the sidewalks, and the stone goddesses atop the Gare de Lyon wore shawls of immaculate snow.

Was it the snow, or had I never realized how beautiful Paris is?  I know it's hailed as the most beautiful city in the world, and tourists constantly drop in to "ooh" and ahh" at the sights, but I think it takes a familiar gaze to really appreciate the beauty of Paris.  I appreciated Paris more the second time I visited, and each time I return--even from a short trip--I'm temporarily awestruck by the city's charm.  The beauty is not éblouissant (dazzling); rather, what's delightful is the remarkable lack of ugliness.  It's like a set of silverware with no missing pieces: everything fits, very few elements look out-of-place, and the lines are familiar, repeated, and aesthetically pleasing.  Of course, my delight faded as soon as I had to lug my 60-pound bag up more than a few set of stairs in the metro.  But I regained my good humor after a long nap, and a dinner of French onion soup and some divine dessert called tarte citron meringue shared with my pals.

I would like to recount some tales of my culture shock upon returning to the U.S., but I'm a bit drained.  Plus, I only really have one good story which involves me pulling out euros to pay for a drink at Starbucks, almost saying merci, and practically choking on their version of a "café au lait" (there are quotation marks for a reason...I feel I have become almost as snobby as the French vis-à-vis American coffee).  I did have the urge to scream, "Merci!  Au revoir!!" as I left every shop and restaurant, but I successfully restrained myself.

Gros bisous,

Alice